[kubrick] The 10 Most Outrageous Theories About What The Shining Really Means … ‘Stuart Ullman’s Paper Tray is Trying to Have Sex with the Audience – Top-notch conspiracy hunter Jay Weidner has many, many theories about the work of Kubrick (and other things) but some of the more eye-popping are his thoughts about how the director used the subliminal messaging of advertisers in his films. To wit: In the scene where Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) meets Stuart Ullman (Barry Nelson) in his office and, Weidner says in 237, his hips line-up perfectly with his paper try making it look like an erection.’

[simpsons] Matt Groening Reveals The Location Of Springfield … ‘Springfield was named after Springfield, Oregon. The only reason is that when I was a kid, the TV show “Father Knows Best” took place in the town of Springfield, and I was thrilled because I imagined that it was the town next to Portland, my hometown. When I grew up, I realized it was just a fictitious name. I also figured out that Springfield was one of the most common names for a city in the U.S. In anticipation of the success of the show, I thought, “This will be cool; everyone will think it’s their Springfield.” And they do.’

[tv] Vatican confirms Simpsons as Catholics … ‘Of course, this is the Vatican we’re talking about, and the devil is of course in the detail. In praising Homer, Rome is effectively dissing other characters in the series – notably the happy-clappy and neighhourly Ned Flanders. Indeed, back in December, the Vatican referred to “the naive radicalism of Flanders and his sons (sic) manic biblical scholars.”‘

[tv] alt.nerd.obsessive — a tribute to the Comic Book Guy … ‘Inspired by the most logical race in the galaxy, the Vulcans, breeding will be permitted once every seven years. For many of you this will mean much less breeding, for me, much much more.’

[comics] Comic Book Guy Soundboard … ‘Inspired by the most logical race in the galaxy, the Vulcans, breeding will be permitted once every seven years. For many of you this will mean much less breeding, for me, much much more.’

[simpsons] The Evening Standard meets Matt Groening. “I haven’t figured out whether comedy is truly healing or whether it’s merely a bandage on the wound. It is momentarily cathartic but then you see comedians who are great on stage and depressed afterwards. Basically, we all want to be loved. Maybe my secret is that I can’t ask for it directly so I ask for it through a cartoon. ‘Hey, please love my cartoon, while I’ll just sit over here.’ If they go ‘heh, heh’ maybe that means they like me a little, too.”

[simpsons] Guardian Unlimited covers the Simpsons in Edinburgh. ‘At the beginning of the evening, by way of introduction, the man from Sky 1 noted: “Unlike Friends, the cast don’t get older and the scripts just get better.” Nor do they get $750,000 an episode. But then, the cast of The Simpsons are only really famous for what they actually do, and not for having nice hair or great pecs.’

[simpsons] The Observer takes a look at ten years of the Simpsons. ‘Perhaps drawn by the show’s numerous highbrow cultural references, it attracts the attention of rhapsodising academics and literati worldwide. Edinburgh’s Napier University, for example, now runs a course in its Cultural Studies module entitled ‘Having the Donut and Eating It: Self-Reflexivity in The Simpsons’. The writer Gilbert Adair declared that ‘The Simpsons is a chef-d’oeuvre to which the work of no currently practising English-language novelist is comparable in importance or greatness.”